Rethink IT, reinvent business IBM SmartCloud enables a new era of computing Here is something you have probably heard from IBM Rational over the past several years: Innovation in software will differentiate your products and services from the competition, which will improve your organization’s bottom line. We firmly believe this is true, and we have case studies and our own in-the-trenches experience to back it up. The problem is, all the innovative thinking in the world will not do you a bit of good if you cannot deliver that software on time... [More]

Smarter. Flatter. Intelligent. Interconnected. Instrumented. We all agree that the world is changing. More likely than not you're building products or services that are driving this evolution. But are you prepared to lead? How can you prepare and win in the age of Smarter Products and Services ?   By Dominic Tavassoli and Pierre Coyne .   Delivering innovative products and services that transform the way we live, work, and play You hear about IBM's 100-year anniversary and the evolution of the technology from the Industrial Revolution through... [More]

IBM Pulse 2014 has been full of exciting announcements - including several announcements around Rational offerings and DevOps solutions supporting the IBM Cloud initiative, plus exciting new capabilities for Mobile development.   IBM DevOps Services ( JazzHub ) optimized for Codename: BlueMix  (open beta) . New capabilities in JazzHub capitalizing on the learning from more than 5,500 projects to provide an end-to-end DevOps solution in the cloud with an open, integrated rapid development experience that scales. Bluemix is... [More]

Simplify IT with Application Portfolio Management As software plays an increasingly critical role in the business performance of corporations, IT faces considerable pressure to support new business initiatives while cutting costs. Over the last 30 years, billions of dollars have been invested in software applications, but typically these investments are poorly leveraged. Too often, a complex and poorly understood application portfolio consumes a large percentage of IT funds, leaving IT leaders challenged to find the funds needed for business... [More]

In this video series we explain the notion of a DevOps continuous delivery pipeline and its relationship to cloud technology. As indicated in my introduction  we have split the DevOps end-to-end scenario into seven distinct sections, each aligned with a specific part of the overall flow captured in a video.   This fifth video highlights how we integrated automated testing into the application deployment process.   The following diagram reflects the parts of the end-to-end scenario that are covered in this section:    ... [More]

You’ve written your mobile app. It’s deployed to an app store. But how much time did you spend improving the quality of your app? Mobile users have a low tolerance for faults. 79 percent of mobile users will only retry an app once or twice if it fails to work the first time . The quality of your mobile app will go a long way to determining the success of your app. Low-quality apps suffer from issues such as frequent crashes, poor... [More]

When I was young and just starting my career one of the key lessons I learned from one of my first mentors was to always look for ways to improve.  Actively look for ways to learn more, and be open to new ideas. At the time this was revolutionary to me because I thought I knew a lot more than other people about certain things; this is one of the drawbacks of youth I guess. But I thought about it, took this advice to heart, and remember it every day. Always look for ways to improve what you do.    When I started playing on a... [More]

*Image courtesy Jaguar Land Rover Limited   Keeping commuters amused and informed is the objective of modern cars in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems. However the dynamic and interdependent nature of IVI systems makes them one of the most complicated systems to design and build. Consider for example the simple use case of volume control in the car. To an oblivious user it is a simple knob that needs to be turned to control the intensity of the sound. But if the consumer is to be given a uniform experience irrespective of the speed and... [More]

Executing a Successful Mobile App Strategy Highlights from IBM Impact 2012 conference Impact 2012 conference is full of mobile content! Rational mobile experts are talking about the challenges of mobile application development/delivery and the tools and solutions from IBM for successfully managing the lifecycle. You can learn more about:   How do you develop for and test against multiple platforms effectively? How do you align business and development? How do you gain control of your development process and accelerate time to delivery? If you... [More]

The compelling case for applicationportfolio management For most companies, whatwould you say is the greatest challenge to achieving innovation? Is it a lackof skill? Imagination? Dedication to success? In our direct experience,confirmed by research we’ve done, it’s none of these things. Across the globe, we findthat skilled, imaginative, and dedicated teams are increasingly hampered bylimited financial resources. Operational and maintenance expenses consume fartoo much of the IT budget, so there’s little left to fund initiatives thatmight lead... [More]

Here's a thought exercise for anybody who writes computer code. Imagine that you're working on a two-month task, just like the work that you do all the time. But there's a catch: your boss needs to know how many lines of code you are going to add, change or delete. Your goal is to be correct within 10 percent of the final number of changed lines.    Sounds tough, right? Well, I have to do that before each release of the documentation for a software product. Months before my documentation team's work is finished,... [More]

The DevOps Services team will be all over the place at IBM Innovate ! With a bunch of great sessions and interactive experiences planned, there are lots of ways for you to learn about IBM DevOps Services and BlueMix , meet our team, and try out our tools in person. Below you’ll find just a sampling of a few of the places you can learn more about IDS and BlueMix at Innovate. For a full list of sessions and workshops, see the Innovate 2014 Agenda .   Be sure to follow our twitter account @JazzHub for... [More]

The Toyota Crisis In the wake of the Toyota auto tragedies over the past twoyears, and the subsequent investigations by NHTSA (the National Highway TrafficSafety Administration), I was surprised to learn how ill-prepared NHTSA wasinitially to dig into the matter -- to see what might have gone wrong, andwhere the blame might fall. The matter: possible vulnerabilities in theelectronic throttle control (ETC) system in several Toyota vehicles. Patentedin 2002, ETC is an electro-mechanical, software-driven subsystem that has beenin production... [More]

  Industries of all varieties have begun to realize that the target audiences for their business applications have shifted in massive numbers from the use of traditional personal computers, such as desktops and notebooks, to using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for accessing the internet and for obtaining the information that they seek. This applies if the intended audience for the application is a direct customer of the enterprise (business-to-consumer apps, or “B2C”), or if the targeted user is an employee or business partner... [More]

  Requirements management What's next for the first, crucial step in successful product development We’ve written many times here about the changing nature of the products and systems that we use in our personal and business lives. The increase in software is the invisible thread that is guiding product innovation and connecting a planet of "intelligent" things. We’ve also talked about the increasing complexity of such products and the challenges that multidisciplinary engineering teams (software, electronic,... [More]

IBM is pleased to announce that IBM UrbanCode has been positioned as a leader in the “ The Forrester Wave™: Continuous Delivery And Release Automation, Q3 2017” report.   IBM UrbanCode Deploy is at the heart of our release automation solution. It automates deployments for continuous delivery of applications. IBM UrbanCode Release coordinates multi-application value streams. Together, they enable software teams to deliver faster with higher quality with less risk and better governance across the full... [More]

We sat down with Alan Brown, IBM Rational CTO for Europe, and asked him about the experiences with customers that drove him to write his new book, “Enterprise Software Delivery: Bringing Agility and Efficiency to the Global Software Supply Chain”, on the CIO summer reading list .   Agile practices are really a key part of the way most organizations are trying to change these days. Agility means more flexibility and provides freedom, but that that kind of flexibility must come with discipline and rigor to give an organization the chance to put... [More]

You need a good information model to carry out effective impact analysis. A software impact analysis report usually covers just the requirements for the relevant part of the code and the test used to verify the code. In a model-based paradigm, however, the effect of a change at the software level can be much greater.   A small change at the code level can impact many requirements and model elements, traversing all the way up the requirement and model hierarchy. Therefore, the information model should be consistently applied across all the... [More]

In what ways is medical device development similar to other product development? If you are in a product development role, you will be very aware of the sorts of challenges you face, including: Increased competition Need to sell into global markets Need to shorten development time and time to market The Rational Solution for Systems and Software Engineering has been produced to help companies to meet these challenges. In this post, I am going to briefly discuss the solution for medical device development that is being built as an extension. In... [More]

  Starting out the new year, it's time to reflect on last year and then begin with a fresh start. Last year I had a great time at DevOps Enterprise Summit . It was once again full of user experiences from a wide variety of customers including Target, American Airlines, NBC Universal, IBM, Walmart and many others. The two prior summit events where I had a chance to present as well, provided with an additional view into the DevOps transformation for distributed teams. It has become clear the concept of a central SCM is resounding and for... [More]

Cloud enabled technologies and DevOps is a major growth initiative for IBM, so we’re excited to announce that Pulse 2014 will feature a Cloud Enabled Technologies and DevOps stream as part of the Optimizing IT & Service Management Track . These sessions will showcase how enterprises can drive rapid business innovation leveraging private and hybrid models. Points of emphasis will be private cloud implementations, Software Defined Environments, DevOps across the cloud and the value of Open Standards initiatives such as Open Stack and... [More]

Earlier this year, we announced the acquisition of EZSource , an Application Discovery company that allows companies to understand their business critical applications so they can effectively maintain and evolve these applications, and make them available in a Hybrid Cloud environment. Earlier this year, we also announced a new innovative product, Application Delivery Intelligence ,which allows mainframe development teams to understand how to optimize the way they work, the lynch pin in IBM’s Cognitive DevOps solution offering.... [More]

Although I am looking at development lifecycle from the perspective of mobile applications now, it wasn't that long ago that I was the Program Director for IBM Rational Jazz Lifecycle Integration platform. My teams were constantly challenged to iteratively bring new capabilities to market to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of cloud, mobile and social, which are undeniably critical influencers for even the traditional application lifecycle. The value of continuous delivery was never more applicable: use the right tools at the right... [More]

The proliferation of mobile devices over the last 10 years, coupled with new trends in wearable technology, is driving us more toward the Internet of Things .  This in turn takes us into interesting new problem spaces.   For many years, development houses—whether delivering systems, products, services or applications—have been wrestling with the triangle of forces that is quality versus cost versus time. However, with the technology trends that we are seeing now—where our devices,... [More]

Enterprise Architecture + Project Portfolio Management = Winning What are the strategic goals and objectives of the organization? What products, services, applications are there to support ? Where should the spending of precious resources take place? Where are we going - what are our options and how and when will we get there? These are questions every organization has to ask themselves….if they can be answered you are in a good position! But that is not usually the case… Businesses have, and are still, investing significant amounts in order to... [More]

A Practical Approach to Quality! If your software andsystems development team is under 10 people, including coding, testing, andproject management, then your projects may not experience huge difficulties associatedwith traceability -- i.e., the discipline that links requirements to test caseand test results. But for larger teams of 30 or more, where even a medium-sizeproject involves 5,000 requirements and 10,000 testcases, the complexity can feel overwhelming. Considerthis: If it takes 20 minutes to link the appropriate test artifacts for... [More]

GE Capital has a vision: to responsibly move at market speed. The challenge is remaining secure, compliant and managing quality standards while moving quickly enough to stay ahead of the competition. Snehal Antani, CIO of CDF & EA at GE Capital, took to the stage during the DevOps keynote to tell how GE had leveraged DevOps to attain their goals.   He echoed what is already becoming a common DevOps theme at Innovate: It’s about people, the shift required to become lean and agile requires a commitment from people. How is GE... [More]

The world has officially gone mobile. It has done so in ways that we could not even have conceived of only a few years ago. Today, there are more smartphones and tablets sold than all of the PCs in the world put together , and in certain countries mobile devices have replaced cash . They have created a vibrant app economy with almost 500,000 new jobs. And a mobile startup goes from zero to a one billion valuation in less than two years. Mobile development has not been confined to just the individual or consumer market. It has also been a key... [More]

This blog post has been a collaborative effort with Marianne Hollier, Cindy VanEpps, Roger LeBlanc and Anita Rass Wan. Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts that will introduce DevOps scenarios for Middleware. Building middleware applications is challenging because of the multi-tier nature of the application. Discipline, communication and transparency between all the teams are required to be successful in this endeavor. “DevOps is an organizational capability focused on the agile relationship among the business, development, test... [More]